Yulysess wrote:

Hi creolejazz, The rule you search lies, I think, in the grammatical unit called "Nominal Clauses/ Nominal-ing clauses, that is, participle clauses", or as pieanne illustrated above, gerunds. The commomest type of participle clause is that which has no subject. When a is subject required, there is sometimes a choice as follows: GENITIVE case in formal style: I'm surprised at his/John's making that mistake OBJECTIVE or COMMON case (for personal pronouns or nouns, espectively) in informal style: I'm surprised at him/ John making that mistake. But beware the subject if it is an inanimate noun phrase which would not normally take the genitive case use objective case and a pronoun in the objective case is disliked in subject position. After the verbs such as "hear, keep smell, start, stop, watch" use objective case After the verbs such as "avoid, enjoy, suggest" use possessive case After the verbs such as "dislike, excuse,fancy, forgive, imagine, like, mind, miss, prevent" you can use one of the both cases. for a refence book "A University Grammar of English" Randolph QUIRK, Sidney GREENBAUM- Longman, p 321,366

I can’t make head nor tail of this.

The rule you search lies, I think, in the grammatical unit called "Nominal Clauses/ Nominal-ing clauses, that is, participle clauses", or as pieanne illustrated above, gerunds.

Right gotcha. Nominal clause = participle clause; nominal-ing clause = gerunds clause

The commomest type of participle clause is that which has no subject.

When a is subject required, there is sometimes a choice as follows:

GENITIVE case in formal style:

I'm surprised at his/John's making that mistake

Hold on! That’s not a participle clause. Participle clauses are adjectives used to modify nouns. What you have there is a gerund but you begin by defining participle clauses.

OBJECTIVE or COMMON case (for personal pronouns or nouns, espectively) in informal style:

I'm surprised at him/ John making that mistake.

Firstly, what is the 'common' case? Has it something to do with gender?

Secondly, if you are using the objective case then what is ‘making’? It’s not a lexical (main) verb because it doesn’t have a tense. So what is it?

But beware the subject

What the subect of the clause (‘him’/’John’)?

There is no subect of the clause as there is no lexical verb. In, ‘John was making a mistake’, you have a tense and therefore you have a lexical verb and hense John is the subject. However, ‘John making a mistake’ is a noun phrase. There is no subject.

if it is an inanimate noun phrase which would not normally take the genitive case use objective case…

Again, it may sound right to the ear, but if one uses the objective case then we don’t have a lexical verb what we have is a noun phrase:

‘…it making that mistake’

‘…him making that mistake’

…and why not use the possessive with inanimate subjects? We use the possessive with all kinds of nouns: a week’s work, duty’s call, etc.

and a pronoun in the objective case is disliked in subject position.

Wait a minute, didn’t you just say that we had a choice? Besides, if the genitive case makes grammatical sense with inanimate objects then it must also make grammatical sense with humans.

After the verbs such as

"hear, keep smell, start, stop, watch" use objective case

After the verbs such as

"avoid, enjoy, suggest" use possessive case

After the verbs such as

"dislike, excuse,fancy, forgive, imagine, like, mind, miss, prevent" you can use one of the both cases.

Would you please give me a few examples of these, thanks

Sorry, if my tone indicates any frustration. I'm struggling to understand your post and it is frankly frustrating for me. Please would you or someone address my questions - thanks!

(edited to reduce the blank space)